Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! These words from Jesus, the “Prince of Peace” tend to surprise and upset us.  They cut across the grain of our sensibilities, and our penchant for getting along with others and avoiding conflict where it may arise. Because of this, people tend to downplay or ignore this facet of Jesus’ teachings, focusing rather on the happy, emotionally uplifting side of the gospel message. Our desire to avoid conflict thus colours our reading of scripture, and leads us to miss out on an important aspect of Jesus teachings.

Throughout the Gospels and in the Book of Revelation we find a number of images of Jesus, the Son of Man, holding a sword. In all of this imagery, the sword that Jesus wields is “the sword of his mouth;” that is, it is the truth which he proclaims which ultimately will divide the nations, society and, as the gospel points out, even families. What we ought to have instilled within us, as Jesus’ disciples and as faithful members of His Church, is the revelation of truth, goodness and beauty that are found in him, and thus we have, in and through Jesus, a new criteria for judging human affairs, criteria which oftentimes sets us at odds with the world and its definitions of what is true, what is good and what is beautiful.

Jesus gave us the formula for accepting the truth that he embodied, and for healing the division of heart which afflicts many of us: Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven (Matt 7:21). Only in a constant submission of our will to God’s will, a constant and recurrent conversion of heart, can we truly find the peace we seek amidst the divisions that the revelation of Christ has brought about. May God in His grace continue to call us to this conversion of heart, and may we ever be accepting and open to this conversion in our ongoing discipleship.